Communities Create Their Own Stores

As major department stores disappear from rural areas across the
country, community-owned stores are popping up in their places—and many
of them are prospering.

When JC Penney closed its doors in Ely, Nevada, the 4,000 town
residents were forced to drive 190 miles to shop for clothes and
household goods. Unwilling to make this trip and unable to entice other
department stores to fill the void, town leaders decided to form their
own corporation and asked the community to invest in it. After they
sold $500 stock shares to neighbors and raised $400,000, the
community-owned department store Garnet Mercantile opened for business.

The residents of Ely took their cues from a handful of other community-owned department stores that have formed in Montana and
Wyoming as chain stores have fled to more populous and prosperous areas
over the last decade. In Plentywood, Montana, where the idea for
community-owned department stores originated, residents bought 18
$10,000 shares to form Little Muddy Dry Goods after the chain store
Stage abandoned the town.

The community-owned department store The Merc in Powell, Wyoming, is
only 22 miles from a Wal-Mart. Yet The Merc has seen success as
residents opt to support the local business over the transnational
corporation.

In the east, Middlebury, Vermont, and Greenfield, Massachusetts, are
considering their own community-owned ventures. In Swanville,
Minnesota, local residents raised $300,000 to share ownership of the
town's lone restaurant, Granny's Café.

Organizers attribute the success of these stores to a sense of
community ownership, boards made up of local merchants, and the ability
to modify the store's inventory to reflect the changing needs of the
community.

In Austin, Texas, when Borders Books & Music threatened to move
across the street from local mainstays Waterloo Records and the Book
People, residents wanted to find out what effect the chain would have
on the community's economy. According to a study conducted by Civic
Economics for the town, $100 spent at Borders creates $13 in local
economic activity, while $100 spent at the locally owned stores returns
$30 to the local economy.

Megan Tady is a former YES! intern.

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